This album recreates the atmosphere and feeling of the 1930s comedies from the Hal Roach Studios, the ‘Lot of Fun’ where Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase, The Boy Friends and Thelma Todd created their biggest successes. These short films were usually enlivened by the catchy background tunes composed by LeRoy Shield (1893-1962). Although the titles of these tunes remained known only to insiders, the music is all too familiar to anyone who ever saw Stan and Ollie embark on one of their doomed journeys. Trained as a classical pianist, Shield eased into the new medium of film music with apparent ease and knocked off dozens of short, catchy background tunes in record time. It is not funny “comedy music” in itself; rather, it ranges from slow, sentimental ballads to uptempo dance numbers.
Tracking down original sheet music took years of detective work. For the first time in history, this album contains renditions of original piano music and original piano transcriptions made by Shield himself – written before the orchestral versions were recorded – of tunes such as ‘All Together’, ‘Little Dancing Girl’, ‘Gangway Charlie’, ‘Riding Along’, and ‘The Moon and You’. It also contains piano transcriptions of Shield’s background tunes from 1930-31 as originally published as loose-leaf sheet music: ‘Bells’, ‘You Are The One I Love’, ‘In My Canoe’, ‘On to the Show’, ‘Riding Along’ and ‘Good Old Days’.
Main focus of this album is the reconstruction of the score of the film ‘Laughing Gravy’ from the recently discovered manuscripts!
End, also for the very first time, this collection includes original piano scores of Shields' Stock Music used in various films, around 1935-36, and some excerpts from the ‘Our Relations’ music score, including ‘Were Just Happy Family’, ‘On a Sunny Afternoon’ and ‘Just a Kiss’.
By the way: this is the - only - digital version of the CD released in December 2016 [AE16024 AEVEA | Leroy Shield. Laurel & Hardy: The Original Piano Music], now difficult be be found.

Pianist Alessandro Simonetto, praised by the composer of Charles Spencer Chaplin, Eric James, as an immense talente, has just recorded "Early and Esoteric Works", a 3 CD-set containing all the piano music by Erik Satie written before and during his mystic period (1887-1897).
The recordings of "Laurel & Hardy: The Original Piano Music" has been made originally @ 176.4kHz * 24-bits using Sennheiser & Neumann mics, pres/AD by Prism Sound, in real stereo tecnique with any mastering addition!

Done wonderfully by Alessandro Simonetto the way the music would sound BEFORE recorded for Roach. You get the music as MUSIC without the 1930s type orchestra. This will be out of print and be a collectors item. —Joel L. Gandelman (03/07/2017)

This disc is clearly a labour of love by pianist Alessandro Gioele Simonetto, who studied film music with Charlie Chaplin's associate composer Eric James. Captivating and completely idiomatic performances. They are recorded, moreover, in very fine sound. —Rob Maynard (20/02/2017)

Leroy Shield's mellifluous, jocular, sentimental tunes for early '30s Hal Roach comedies, re-played in their original piano forms. Includes first full recording of theme for 1931'2 laugh-riot Laughing Gravy. —IH ****/4 (01/03/2017)

The final result of Alessandro Simonetto's work is truly superlative, because the music — animated by varied rhythms, from ragtime to waltzes — come alive in all its pleasant freshness and variety, highlighting the melodic imagination of the composer. —Gilberto Mion (01/03/2017)

The delightful result gives indications of what it might have been like to be in the company of Leroy Shield as he gave a piano rendering of his own compositions. Simonetto is tough his own musician; he brings something new and valuable to the music. —Glenn Mitchell The Laurel & Hardy Magazine
(01/04/2017)

There is something of the spirit of musicology here. Simonetto's performances carry astonishing power at times; at others, there is pure tomfoolery afoot. Specialist repertoire, certainly, but give it a go! —Colin Clarke ***** (01/06/2017)